‘She inherited a lot of money. She’s very dangerous, Mr Hardy. She harassed me for months. I got her to see a student counsellor and his report was, well… disturbing. If she’s transferred her attentions to you, you’ve got a real problem.’
‘Does she have a doctor?’
‘Now that you mention it, yes. I’ve got some of this stuff on disk. I could look it up and give you a ring back in a few minutes if you’d like.’
I thanked him and gave him my number. Another computer man. Gave him an edge. What I didn’t remember, I didn’t know. I looked out the window again. Nothing. At least it wasn’t raining. I had another can of beer.
‘Dr John Holmes,’ Maurice said when he rang back. ‘Psychiatrist.’
‘Woollahra. I know him. Many thanks.’
He wished me the best of luck, with feeling. I’d met Dr Holmes a few years back when I was trying to find a freaked-out writer bent on destroying himself and a few others. I found him, but too late, and Dr Holmes wasn’t a hell of a big help. Still, it was something to cling to. Maybe Paula Wilberforce went to see him every week and would be happy to put my gun on his big, polished desk. I went to the cupboard under the stairs where I keep another gun- an unlicensed Colt. 45 automatic. It was an early model that didn’t have the extra safety grip that has to be squeezed before the weapon can operate. I’ve never liked it, always thought of it as a dangerous piece of equipment, but I keep it oiled and clean. I worked the slide and ran a rag over it, then put it away in the dark cupboard.
A light flashed in the front window-dial a windscreen had arrived. Normally, I’d have gone out to watch them work and thanked them for their efforts, but the reverses of the day had soured me. I stood at the window and watched their efficient movements as they suctioned out the broken glass and fitted the new windscreen and window. Two men performed the operation inside thirty minutes. They took the cheque, locked the doors and went on their way. I envied them the simplicity and usefulness of their line of work.
It was close to eleven o’clock when I finally got through to Glen. She sounded tired and told me she’d had a hell of a day defending some of her liberal positions on firearms and the use of vehicles. ‘How was your day?’ she said.
What could I say? I couldn’t tell her about the plastic gun and the real one. She’d have reported the theft immediately, whatever I said. I told her the day had been dull apart from a broken windscreen.
‘Shit. Were you hurt?’
‘No, no. Cost a couple of hundred bucks though.’
‘Look, Cliff, I’m going to have to stay another night. There’s a new intake I have to talk to and some other things to do.’
‘OK, but I won’t be here the day after. I’ve got to go up to the Blue Mountains.’
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know.’
It was one of those difficult moments we encountered from time to time. She didn’t expect me to tell her what I was doing. I wanted to but we both knew it wouldn’t work. It was an uncomfortable thing, especially over the phone.
‘So,’ I said. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You too. I’m in bed. I wish you were here.’
‘Me too. What’re you wearing?’
‘It’s bloody freezing. I’ve got my tracka on.’
Glen had made a trip to New Caledonia as part of her recovery from her wound and returned with some pleasing French sleepwear. It amused her to see its effect on me. It amused us both. ‘Good,’ I said.
5
I made a mess of the lecture. I was nervous and distracted. I couldn’t remember much of what I’d said the first time and kept getting my sentences tangled up. I was on the lookout for Paula Wilberforce and didn’t relax for the whole time. I was impatient with the questioners. Altogether an unimpressive performance. No applause. When, to everyone’s relief, it was over, I apologised to Sanderson.
‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘Happens. Is it to do with Ms Wilberforce?’
‘Yeah. I really need to get in touch with her. That Lindfield address you gave me’s a frost. It’s up for sale and the agents won’t tell me a thing about her.’
I’d telephoned Climpson amp; Carter at five minutes past nine and drawn a complete blank. I asked Sanderson if he knew anything at all about the woman that might help me. I told him that Dr Maurice had been helpful up to a point, and this seemed to encourage him. He said he might have something and went to his office which was a small, narrow, cell-like room with a window looking out over Crystal Street. The window was too dirty to look through, but Crystal Street isn’t much to see. Dan opened drawers in a filing cabinet and banged them shut. Then he opened the same drawers again. It seemed to be his way of finding things.
‘Thought so.’ He held up a card. ‘She was sick and got me to post her essay back. I remember that it was a different address from the one on her enrolment. Cliff, I’m not sure I should be doing this.’
I pulled out the receipt the windscreen boys had left in the car. ‘Take a look at this. Your bloody student trashed my car yesterday. She followed me on a job. She’s making a bloody nuisance of herself and I have to put a stop to it.’
Dan handed the note over. It was a few scrawled lines asking him to post her essay to 74B St Marks Road, Randwick.
‘You did it? And she got it?’
‘Yep. What’re you going to do, Cliff?’
‘Convince her of the error of her ways. Thanks a lot, Dan. Sorry again about the lousy performance.’
He grunted, not happy.
The weather had improved and my mood had lifted. At least I had some line to follow other than trying to get an appointment with Dr Holmes. I knew from experience that that would be hard, and getting information from him even harder. It was warm in the car so I wound the windows down. The new window fitted fine and all seemed well with the windscreen. A few minute particles of glass glittered along the top of the dashboard. Inevitably, there would be other specks in the seats and on the floor but the specialists had done a good job. As I drove to Randwick the thought struck me that the well-heeled Ms Wilberforce might be persuaded to pay for the damage. I was feeling better by the minute.
The house was a three-storey sandstone mansion set in an elevated position on a big corner block. There was a high white wooden fence across the front and an even higher brick wall along the street side. The gate in the front fence had some sort of security lock. I wandered along the side to where the double garage stood open. A dusty, dark blue Land Rover was parked in one of the spaces, the other was empty. Through an open door at the back of the garage I could see into Number 74B’s yard-swimming pool enclosed in some kind of solarium, clippered lawn, flower beds, native trees. The area appeared to trap all the available sun and light.
I walked through the garage into this patch of suburban paradise. Inside the solarium a man was lying on a cane lounge. He was old, wrinkled like a turtle and brown as a much-oiled boot. He was also naked apart from sunglasses. His thin body was stretched out on the lounge like a lizard basking in the sun. A copy of the Financial Review was propped up in front of him, held by hands that trembled slightly as he turned the page. A bright red inflated raft drifted in the pool. I could hear music, very faintly, possibly coming from inside the house. The solarium was an aluminium frame fitted with a series of swivel-mounted plastic panels. I opened one of the panels and stepped inside. The temperature went up twenty degrees and sweat broke out around my collar and started to run down my chest.
‘Excuse me.’
He slowly lowered the paper but did not place it across his genitals. No false modesty here. He slid the shades down to the end of his beaky nose. The face he turned towards me was a mask of urbanity- clipped white
